Category Poetry

As a Worship Associate in my church, I occasionally assist in services, like a high-level version of an altar boy from my Catholic boyhood. That means I get to do some reading and talking instead of leaving it all to the priest. One function is a brief personal reflection tied to the presenter’s sermon theme. The subject on this occasion was suffering and mortality, for which I used this achingly lovely poem by Susan Deborah King as grist for my comments which follow in the next post. If you prefer to listen to the poem and reflection, click on the tab below the poem.

“As Death Approaches” by Susan Deborah King, from One-Breasted Woman

© 2007 Holy Cow! Press  Reprinted with permission.

As Death Approaches

I can’t believe I’m laughing!

I’d have sworn I’d be

shaking or sniveling.

And I sure didn’t expect

a limousine.

I’ve never been in a limousine.

No biggy.

I’ve had better than fame.

Who needs the p...

I think you’ll be delighted to know that Susan Deborah King, the author of the poem we discussed in this space last week, “As Death Approaches” in the volume titled One-Breasted Woman (chronicling her near lethal battle with breast cancer), is alive and writing today, five years after publication. She even has a website currently “under construction,” and if that’s not a statement of faith in the future, I don’t know what is!

I love the almost delirious gratitude of this poem, the surveying of her life’s riches even as death hovers behind her lost breast, her bald head, her nausea from the chemo. Her laughter and gratitude serve as flares to brighten the darkness that can seem so enveloping “As Death Approaches.”

It’s been my not-all-that rare privilege to attend many deaths over the years; I suppose it’s one of the ambiguous benefits of having been gifted to live as long as I have...